


A Sky Full of Dreams

by dark_brohood



Series: A Traveller Between the Stars [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Aliens, Angst, I'm Basically Putting a Character Into Doctor Who, Mystery, Series 1, Series 1 Rewrite, why? because i can
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27873398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_brohood/pseuds/dark_brohood
Summary: Cory Wright was just a normal girl. When her friend returns after being missing for a year, and an alien spaceship crashes into Big Ben, she's thrown headfirst into a world of aliens and time travel.With her friends by her side and an incurable case of curiosity, she fits right in with the occupants of the TARDIS. But there's something the Doctor isn't telling her. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows by the way he looks at her that she's met him before. She just doesn't know where.~ Doctor Who Series 1 Rewrite ~ Updates every Friday ~
Relationships: Ninth Doctor & Original Female Character(s), Ninth Doctor & Rose Tyler
Series: A Traveller Between the Stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040750
Kudos: 5





	A Sky Full of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, so this is the start of a series where my OC, Coraline Wright, is added into Doctor Who. I've had this idea for a while now and finally decided to write it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Maybe it was fate that decided Cory Wright would be laying on that couch the day Rose Tyler came home. Maybe it was chance that the flu she’d been plagued with the past week was finally letting up, under the careful watch of Jackie Tyler, who had been looking after the twenty-year-old as a substitute for her own missing daughter. Maybe it was just dumb luck that Jackie had gone to make them both a cuppa to soothe them both, when Rose Tyler walked through the door like no time had passed.

The young blonde set down her keys in the bowl by the door, her voice echoing throughout the flat. “I’m back! I was with Shareen. She got all upset again. Are you in?”

She walked into the living room, wearing the same clothes she had been one year prior, like she hadn’t even aged a day. Cory stood up in shock as she registered what was happening, her bright red hair falling out of the ponytail she had been putting it in.

“Rose?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“Cory?” Rose asked, looking confused. “What’re you doing here? Where’s mum? She’s not upset that I stayed out all night, is she? It’s not the first time.”

The sound of ceramics shattering hit them, and Rose turned around to see her mother, almost a spitting image despite their age difference, mugs shattered at her feet, staining the pink slippers Cory had given her for mother’s day in lieu of her own mother being dead.

“It’s you,” Jackie muttered.

“Course it’s me.”

“Oh, my God, it’s you. Oh, my God.” She pulled her daughter into a hug, planning on never letting her go. Cory could do nothing but stare in astonishment as her friend, who had been missing for a year, stood not even ten feet away from her.

A man ran into the apartment, his hair buzzed short with large ears, wearing a leather jacket. Cory didn’t know why, but there was something about him that was familiar to her.

“It’s not twelve hours, it’s twelve months,” he told Rose in a thick Manc accent, a large smile on his face. “You’ve been gone a whole year. Sorry.”

He looked around the room almost nervously as Rose gave him an exasperated look, and his eyes landed on Cory. His bright blue eyes widened in disbelief, and it looked like his jaw wanted to fall off its hinges, but didn’t only out of politeness. He didn’t say anything, though. Just kept quiet as Jackie picked up the phone and called the police.

* * *

“The hours I’ve sat here, the days and weeks and months, all on my own if it wasn’t for Cory!” Jackie yelled at Rose. “I thought you were dead, and where were you? ‘Travelling’!”

For her credit, Rose looked extremely guilty as she sat curled up on one of the bean bag chairs, playing with the laces of her shoes. The mysterious man, who called himself ‘The Doctor’ stood up beside her in his beat-up leather jacket, every now and then not-so-subtly throwing a glance at Cory.

Cory herself was in the corner leaning against the wall, not wanting to butt-in the conversation and reunion. She had wanted to leave, to escape the awkwardness and the interrogation that was sure to come, but Jackie had said she’d become a daughter to her in the past year, and told her to stay. So she did.

“What the hell does that mean, travelling?” She bent down and looked her daughter in the eye. “That’s no sort of answer! You ask her, she won’t tell me,” she told the police constable that was sitting across from Rose. “That’s all she says, ‘travelling’.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Rose told her.

“With your passport still in the drawer? It’s just one lie after another!”

“I meant to phone, I really did. I just… I forgot.”

“For a year? You forgot for a year, and I’m left sitting here?! I just don’t believe you,” Jackie said, walking across the apartment, full of worry and anger and another emotion Cory couldn’t name. She’d never been good with emotions. “Why won’t you just tell me where you’ve been?”

“Actually, it’s my fault,” the Doctor said, speaking up for the first time since the constable got there. “I sort of… employed Rose as my companion.”

The constable spoke up. “When you say companion, is this a sexual relationship?”

“No!” they both said at the same time. Rose looked almost disgusted.

“Then what is it?” Jackie asked the Doctor. “Because you… You waltz in here, all charm and smiles, and the next thing I know, she vanishes off the face of the Earth! How old are you then, forty, forty-five? What, did you find her on the internet, go online and pretend you’re a doctor?”

“I am a doctor,” he said, a smile on his face. The smile really never left him. If Cory was Rose, she’d run away with him too.

“Prove it. Stitch this, mate.” She swung her hand, and it collided with the side of his face.

Cory moved out of the corner and went to the kitchen, grabbing the ice pack from the freezer. She wrapped it in a tea towel, and went back into the living room. She offered it to the Doctor, who hesitated when he saw the outstretched hand. He looked into her eyes, like he was searching for something, but she didn’t know what. He took it.

“Thanks,” he muttered, placing it where Jackie had slapped him. She was talking to the constable, who looked like he was going to leave. “You have interesting eyes.”

She looked up at him. She got that a lot; her eyes were two different colours, one a bright blue and the other a dark brown, and everyone either said they were the coolest thing they’d ever seen or that they were the mark of the devil and she shouldn’t be so proud about them. The latter was usually from old white Christian conservatives as they clutched their pearls in fear.

The constable left. After giving Cory back the ice pack, the Doctor left, as well, leaving Cory alone with Jackie and Rose. They collapsed into a hug as Cory’s phone rang.

She checked the caller ID and left the flat, standing outside on the balcony to take the call. She answered it and pressed it to her ear. “What is it now, Donna?”

Donna Noble sneered through the phone. “ _ Why do you always assume I want something? _ ”

“Because you always do.”

“ _ Nevermind that. I just made a complaint to HR about Mark. You wouldn’t  _ believe  _ what they said to me _ .”

“I’m sure I can.”

She  _ hmmf _ ed. “ _ Are you free? I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Meet me at Coffee Grinds in twenty minutes? You know, that shop by the Thames. _ ”

“Yeah, I know where it is,” Cory told her. “I’ll meet you there.”

“ _ You better. _ ”

She hung up. Cory just shook her head, and sent Rose a text that she’s going to see a friend. Putting her hands deep in the pockets of her dress, she started on her journey.

If only she knew how much this cup of coffee would change her life forever.

* * *

Cory sipped on her coffee as Donna ranted on about Mark and HR at the newest temp job in a long line of temp jobs. The thirty-something woman had no idea where her life was going, but she always dreamed big. Though how she got big, she never knew.

The two of them had met a year prior when Cory worked as a waitress in a coffee shop connected to a doctor’s clinic. Donna had been temping as the secretary there, and they had hit it off when the bitch of the clinic, a doctor who thought she knew everything and would tell everyone they were wrong, spilt coffee on herself and they had both laughed. They started talking, and soon they started talking about all their bitchy coworkers to each other--though Donna obviously had more stories.

“So, what about you?” Donna asked, finishing her tirade for now and taking a sip of her tea. “Any horrible coworkers at that fancy library you work at now?”

“Not really. Although,” she said, the other redhead perking up, “there’s Jake.”

“Oooh, do tell,” Donna told her. “After I go to the bathroom. This bitch needs to take a whizz.”

Cory smiled and nodded, and Donna got up and went to the bathroom. Almost immediately after she entered, people outside the shop started screaming. Curious, Cory got up and left the coffee shop.

She almost wished she hadn’t.

Streaking through the sky was a large, metal spaceship, smoke and fire spitting out of the end of it. It careened all over, like it was out of control, and smashed into the side of Big Ben. The clock tower chimed as it folded in half, and the spaceship nounced off and landed heavily in the Thames, sending a large wave out towards Tower Bridge.

It wasn’t long before helicopters were flying overhead and the army was descending on the crash site. They were strange, though. Not a normal army. They wore red berets with a bronze bird with outstretched wings pinned to it, and they ushered everyone away.

Donna called her when she was halfway home, asking her where she had gone off to. She explained the situation, and she cursed herself.

“ _ An alien spacecraft falls out of the sky and I miss it? Just my luck. _ ”

When she got to her block of flats, Jackie ushered her into the Tyler residence. The Doctor was staring at the TV, wrestling a remote from a two-year-old that was sitting on his lap. Jackie started gossiping with everyone that was there. Mrs Chen handed her a cup of tea in her favourite mug, and she took it graciously.

“D’you know what’s happening?” Alice from three floors above asked her as she sat down next to Rose.

“An alien crashed into the Thames,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “I saw it happen. I was right there having coffee with Donna.”

“Blimey, you were there?” Jackie asked. “No wonder it took you so long to get back. The city’s in gridlock.”

“Yeah, I had to leave my car there. There was no way I was going to get out of there anytime soon.”

“What did you see?” the Doctor asked.

She shrugged, the cup of tea warm between her hands. “I’m not sure. It crashed into the Big Ben, and then landed in the Thames. It was like it was falling out of the sky.”

“An actual crash,” he muttered, grinning. The grin never left his face, did it? “Fantastic.”

She blinked. “What?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“How is it fantastic? They said there was a body. If that poor alien is still alive then they’re going to torture it to find out what it is.”

“Maybe they will,” he said, the smile faltering a little. 

“Humans are terrible because the possibility of it being true is there. And there are people out there that will do it, just because it’s different.”

He was silent for a moment. “What’s your name again?”

“I didn’t tell you. It’s Coraline Write. But you can call me Cory.”

That look was in his eyes again, the discernable gaze he had given her when he first laid eyes on her. Like she was someone he knew, but not quite. Like she was wrong somehow. She didn’t like it.

“I like you, Cory Wright.”

Somehow, that felt like the best compliment she had ever been given. She smiled slightly and looked away.

* * *

She knew it was a bad habit, but the smoke that curled inside Cory’s lung made her mind feel clear. She had promised Jackie that she’d try and quit, but she told herself she’d finish the packet and then stop cold turkey. And there were still ten cigarettes left in the packet.

She blew out the smoke, watching as it climbed and curled into the cool night sky, illuminated by the moon. She watched as it went up and up, until it was carried away by a breeze.

She put the cigarette to her mouth and took another drag.

“That’ll kill you, you know.”

She sputtered, the cigarette falling out of her mouth as she choked on the smoke in her mouth and throat. She coughed as it hit the floor, the smoke escaping from her mouth and nose, her bliss floating away with it. She turned around, and saw the Doctor walking up to her, hands in the pockets of his scarred leather jacket.

“I’m quitting soon,” she told him, reaching down and picking up the cigarette. She swore under her breath. It was out.

“You could always quit now.”

She pulled her lighter out of her pocket and lit the cigarette back up, taking a long drag of it as he passed her. “I need to finish this pack. Don’t want to waste my money.”

“Ah,  _ money _ ,” he muttered. “You humans stake everything on money. It’s daft.”

“You say that like you’re not human.”

He didn’t say anything. He stopped in front of the blue police box that hadn’t been there this morning, and fished a key out of his pocket. She could almost see the smirk on his face.

“Who are you, Doctor?” she asked, the cigarette hanging between two fingers. “Mickey’s told me about you. How you stole Rose away in your blue box. I never believed him.”

“What made you change your mind?” he asked her back, looking over his shoulder as he unlocked the police box.

“I found this.” She gestured to the police box. “It wasn’t there this morning.”

He grinned, and opened the door. “Keep the cigarette out there,” he told her, and he stepped inside.

She blinked at him, surprised. She dropped the bud on the floor and ground it into the pavement with the toe of her shoe. She approached the box gingerly, reaching out and pressing her fingertips to the wood.

It hummed beneath her fingertips, alighting a long dormant spark inside her. It thrummed in her veins like a song she loved so long ago, the lyrics she had forgotten while the melody had stuck with her throughout the long years. It was like a drumbeat in her chest, trying to beat with a muscle she didn’t have.

It was like a home she had left and never thought she’d return to.

She let go of the box, her heart beating rapidly, trapped in its cage of bone. She felt tears starting to well up in her eyes, though she had no idea why.

And despite all this, and the voice in her head telling her to leave, that this isn’t right, that it was only a wooden box with nothing special about it, she opened the door and stepped inside.

She almost ran back out.

It was bigger on the inside. While the outside had been tiny, with the inside probably only being able to fit at max three people, this had vaulted ceilings, a large metal platform in the middle with railings surrounding it, metal walkways leading up to and deeper into the box. Support beams held up the domed roof, hexagonal holes with circular lights inside them dotting every part of the curved walls in a repeated pattern. And in the centre, playing with switches, buttons, levers, and even a hammer, the Doctor stood at a large console, surrounding a large glass cylinder that rose to the roof.

Somehow, a part of her wasn’t surprised.

“It’s--it’s bigger on the inside,” she said, gawking at the impossibly large space.

“Yes, it is,” he said, flipping a switch. He grinned as a green circular object rose and fell inside the glass tube in the centre and a large grating sound filled the air. “You might want to hold on to something.”

She moved from where she was standing at the entrance onto the raised platform. She grabbed one of the copper-coloured railings and held on tight, glad she was wearing flats and not the heels she had been planning to wear that morning. The entire box started to shake, and she wrapped her arms around it to keep herself steady, bending at the knees.

“What’s happening?”

He grinned at her as he ran around the console, pressing random buttons and hitting it with a hammer. “You’ll see.”

The shaking stopped, and he dropped the hammer on the console. “Come along. And be quiet.” He ran for the door and, though every instinct inside of her was telling her this man wasn’t right, Cory followed. He opened the door, and shimmied out sideways. When Cory got there, instead of the block of flats she lived in, they were standing in a small room with a metal trolley in front of them, topped up with boxes and computer parts.

“What--”

He shushed her and whispered, “I’ll explain everything later. But now you have to be quiet.”

She nodded, and followed him to the next door. It was locked. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a long metal tube with a blue tip on the end of it. He pressed a button on it and it let out a large whirring sound, the blue tip lighting up. He shushed it.

She wondered what it was, but remembered what he said. He’ll explain it all later.

He held it above the lock and pressed the button again, the whirring sound coming back. After a couple seconds he turned it off and he tucked it back into his jacket.

He opened the door, and they were greeted by a bunch of soldiers talking and chatting away on their break. They all stopped when they saw Cory and the Doctor standing in the doorway of what was apparently the storage room, then grabbed their guns and aimed them at their heads.

Cory froze, but the Doctor didn’t look worried, even as they shined their torches into his face.

A scream filtered down the corridor.

The Doctor kicked into action immediately, running through the group of soldiers as he shouted orders at them. Cory didn’t understand what he was saying, but followed the soldiers as they did what the Doctor said. For some reason.

They ran into what looked like a morgue, and found a woman cowering behind a desk. “It’s alive,” she cried out.

“Spread out, tell the perimetre it’s a lockdown,” the Doctor told the soldiers. He went to the woman as she muttered about something being alive. Cory followed.

“I swear it was dead,” she said, breathing ragged. There was a cut on her forehead, blood trickling down the side of her face.

“Coma, shock, hibernation, anything… What does it look like?”

Something metal was knocked over on the other side of the room, and Cory and the Doctor turned to the noise.

“It’s still here,” Cory muttered.

The Doctor stood up and silently grabbed the closest soldier, motioning for him to move. Cory stayed with the woman, a hand resting comfortingly on her arm. They both watched as the Doctor and the soldier scoped out the room, approaching where the noise was coming from. The Doctor went onto his hands and knees and crawled around a table.

It snorted like a pig. And then it squealed like one.

The thing ran around the room, terrified out of its mind. The soldier aimed its gun, but the Doctor told him not to shoot. Cory watched as it ran out of the room, the Doctor following it out.

And then she heard a gunshot.

* * *

“I just assumed that’s what aliens looked like. But you’re saying it’s an ordinary pig, from Earth?” the woman, who had introduced herself as Dr Sato, asked the Doctor.

“More like a mermaid,” he told her. When she and Cory looked at him confused, he elaborated: “Victorian showmen used to draw the crowds by taking the skull of a cat and gluing it to a fish, then calling it a mermaid. Now someone’s taken a pig, opened up its brain, stuck pits on. Then they’ve strapped it in that ship, made it dive-bomb. It must’ve been terrified.”

“That’s horrible,” Cory said. 

The Doctor nodded. “They’ve taken this animal and turned it into a joke.”

“So it’s a fake, a pretend, like the mermaid. But the technology augmenting its brain, it’s like nothing on Earth,” Dr Sato told them.

The Doctor turned on his heel as she talked to herself, and Cory followed him, her words getting cut off as they headed towards the Doctor’s big blue box.

“What even is this thing?” Cory asked, sitting down on one of the booster seats set up around the console.

“It’s called a TARDIS,” he explained. “Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. It’s my spaceship.”

She blinked in surprise. “You’re an alien.”

He looked at her and nodded. He flipped a couple switches, and the box--the TARDIS--started making the whirring sound again.

“It fazes in and out of reality,” he said. “I set a destination and it jumps from one place to another.”

“By that logic it can also travel in time. It’s even in the name.”

He smiled at her. “You’re smart.”

Her heart skipped a beat. There was something so familiar about that smile, but she couldn’t place it. Like it was from a lifetime ago, a sense of deja vu that was too real to be a coincidence. And time travel--she’d dreamed about it since she was a child, hopping from time to time, meeting people like Beethovan and Elizabeth I. Even going to the future and seeing where humanity progressed to.

To be standing in a time machine… It was like she was in a dream. And she never wanted to wake up.

The door opened, and Rose came sauntering into the TARDIS towards the Doctor, who was now staring at the screen with his arms crossed. She didn’t spot Cory sitting on the booster seat, but now she knew where the younger girl had been for the past year--she’d been travelling through time and space. It probably only  _ had _ been a night for her.

“Alright, so I lied,” the Doctor told her. “I went to have a look. But the whole crash-landing’s a fake. I thought so. Just too perfect. I mean, hitting Big Ben, come on. So I thought, ‘Let’s go have a look at the pilot--”

“My mum’s here,” Rose interrupted.

Cory looked over at the door as it creaked to a close, Jackie and Rose’s boyfriend, Mickey Smith, standing there. Jackie was looking astonished while Mickey just looked cross.

“Oh, just what I need. Don’t you dare make this place domestic! And that goes for you too, Cory. Can’t have family here.”

The three humans in the room looked over at where he had pointed, and Cory waved awkwardly at them.

“Cory? What’re you doing here?” Mickey asked accusatory. 

She put her hands up in surrender. “I was just having a smoke and he came up to me, I swear.”

He rolled his eyes like he didn’t believe her, then turned to the Doctor. “You ruined my life, Doctor. They thought she was dead. I was a murder suspect because of you.”

The Doctor was silent for a second before looking between Rose and Cory. “See what I mean? Domestic!”

“I bet you don’t even remember my name!” Mickey challenged, stepping up to the Doctor.

“Rickey.”

“It’s Mickey.”

“No, it’s Rickey.”

“I think I know my own name!”

“You  _ think _ you know your own name? How stupd are you?”

“Enough!” Cory said, standing up. “That’s enough.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jackie run out of the TARDIS. Rose ran after her after telling the boys not to fight and Cory to keep an eye on them.

A couple seconds later she ran right back in, planting her hands on the side of the console. “That was a real spaceship?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, looking back at the screen.

“So it’s all a pack of lies. What is it then? Are they invading?”

“Funny way to invade, putting the world on red alert,” Mickey interjected.

“Good point,” the Doctor said, almost surprised. “So, what are they up to?”

“It could be their plan,” Cory said. “I mean, all the nations are arming themselves for an invasion now. And, all of the alien experts would be getting flown in to Ten Downing Street to assess the threat.”

The Doctor nodded, smiling at her. “I knew I liked you.”

* * *

“So how did you start travelling with the Doctor?”

Rose looked up from where she was playing with the console and looked at Cory, who was sitting back in the booster seat. On the other side of the control room, the Doctor was doing things with the wiring while Mickey was trying to be macho and thinking he could help. Even Cory knew he couldn’t.

“Remember when my shop blew up?” Rose asked. Cory nodded. “Yeah, he did that. We stopped all those mannequins together. And then he asked me to join him. And I said yes. What about you?”

“What?”

“How’d you start travelling?”

“Oh, I’m not,” Cory said. “I was just having a smoke and then he came up and told me they’d kill me. I think he let me in the TARDIS because he could see I was curious.”

“Fifty pounds he invites you to join us.”

“You’re on, Tyler.”

They giggled at each other, and Cory was glad there wasn’t any tension between them. It had really just been an accident.

Mikey came over to Rose, dejected. “Some friend you’ve got.”

“He’s winding you up,” she told him. He was quiet for a couple moments, and Rose said, “I am sorry.”

“Okay.”

“I am, though.”

More silence.

“Every day, I looked. On every street corner, wherever I went. Looking for a blue box. For a whole year. And Cory found it first.”

“It’s only been a few days for me,” Rose told him. “I dunno, it’s hard to tell inside this thing but I swear, it’s just been a few days since I left you.”

“Not enough time to miss me, then.”

“I did miss you.”

A small smile creeped onto Mickey’s face. “I missed you.”

“So, um, in twelve months… have you been seeing anyone else?”

“Nope,” he said, almost too quickly.

Rose didn’t look like she believed him. “Okay…”

“Mainly because everyone thinks I murdered you.”

“Right.”

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t think you killed her,” Cory said, tapping at the railing lightly with a finger.

He looked at her and smiled. “I know. It was nice having someone in my corner.” He looked back at Rose. “Now that you’re back, are you going to stay?”

He leaned in to kiss her, when the sound of sparks filtered over from where the Doctor was messing around underneath the console. “Got it! Aha!”

He climbed out of the hole and moved to the screen. “Patched in the radar, looped it back twelve hours so it followed the flight of that spaceship. Here we go, hold on. Let’s see if that theory of yours is true.” Cory and Rose crowded around the Doctor, while Mickey hung back. He hit the screen as it loaded up. “Come on. That’s the spaceship on its way to Earth, see?”

The screen showed a large orb, the Earth, with a trajectory line coming out of it. It almost looked like a circular one, but that didn’t make much sense.

“Except! Hold on…” The image on the screen moved, the Earth turning. “See? The spaceship did a slingshot round the Earth before it landed.”

“What’s that mean?” Rose asked.

“It means that it came from Earth in the first place. Went up and came back down. Whoever those aliens are, they haven’t just arrived. They’ve been here for a while. Question is, what’ve they been doing?”

The Doctor started switching through worldwide channels, watching all the panic in the world at the thought of extraterrestrial life. A lot of them were showing armies preparing for war.

“How many channels you get?” Mickey asked, leaning towards the screen.

The Doctor crossed his arms. “All the basic packages.

“D’you get sports channels?”

“Yes, I get the football,” he said, almost exasperated. “Hold on. I know that lot.”

The screen was showing a group of military personnel marching through a building, a woman explaining they were the top alien researchers on the planet.

“UNIT. United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Good people.”

“How’d you know them?” Rose asked, staring at the screen.

“Cos he’s worked for them.”

They all looked at Mickey, who was the one who had spoken. Mickey had done research on the Doctor for the past twelve months, even showing Cory some of it. He must’ve mentioned UNIT at some point. The name sounded familiar.

“Oh, yeah, don’t think I sat on my backside for twelve months, Doctor, I read up on you. You look deep enough on the internet or in history books--there’s his name. Followed by a list of the dead.”

“That’s nice, good boy, Rickey!” the Doctor said sarcastically.

“If you know ‘em, why not go and help?” Rose asked.

“They wouldn’t recognise me. I’ve changed a lot since the old days. Besides, the world’s on a knife-edge. There’s aliens out there, and fake aliens.” He started walking around the console, flipping switches. “I want to keep this alien out of the mix. But this does mean that Cory’s right. They did this to get them all together. Now, we only have to figure out why. I’m going undercover.” He dinged a bell, and turned some knobs. “And I’d better keep the TARDIS out of sight. Ricky, you’ve got a car, you can do some driving.”

He led the way to the door, Rose happily skipping along while Mickey looked indignant.

“Where to?”

“The roads are clearing,” the Doctor said, pausing by the door. Rose and Cory stood beside each other behind him. “Let’s go and have a look at that spaceship.”

He opened the doors and they all stepped out. Immediately a spotlight was on them, helicopters flying above them with armed men pointing guns at them. They were all completely surrounded.

Mickey ran, leaving the others alone under the spotlight. A couple soldiers ran after him as Jackie came out of the block of flats, yelling for Rose. She was dragged away from them.

“ _ Raise your hands above your heads! You are under arrest! _ ”

The three of them put their hands up in surrender.

“Take me to your leader,” the Doctor said, his usual grin spread across his face.

Cory couldn’t help but smile too || as soldiers grabbed the three of them and shepherded them into a car. It was nice; the insides were made of dark leather, and the design was very sleek and modern.

“This is a bit posh!” Rose said, one of the soldiers closing the door on her. “If I’d known it would be like this, being arrested, I would’ve done it years ago.”

“We’re not being arrested, we’re being escorted,” the Doctor explained.

Cory, who was squished up against the door next to the Doctor, frowned. “Then why did they say we were being arrested?”

He didn’t answer her.

“Where to?” Rose asked.

“Where'd you think? Downing Street.”

“Downing Street?” Cory asked. “As in, the Prime Minister Downing Street?”

“Ten Downing Street?” Rose asked at the same time. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not!” the Doctor exclaimed, a loud laugh escaping from him.

It was contagious, and soon enough all three of them were roaring with laughter in the back of the limo, heading towards Ten Downing Street. Heading towards the Prime Minister of England.

“How come we’re going there?” Rose asked, after their laughter died down.

“I hate to admit it, but Mickey was right. Over the years I’ve visited this planet a lot of times, and I’ve been… noticed.”

“Now they need you,” Cory said.

“Like it said on the news, they’re gathering experts in alien knowledge. And who’s the biggest expert of the lot?”

“Patrick Moore,” Rose said.

“Apart from him.”

A grin spread across her face. “Oh, don’t you love it.”

“Ah, I’m telling you! Lloyd George, he used to drink me under the table. Who’s the Prime Minister now?”

“How should I know?” Rose asked. “I missed a year.”

He looked at Cory, who was looking out the window and watching the houses pass. “What about you?”

“I have no idea. Don’t really care. I know he’s a Torie, though.”

He wrinkled his nose at that.

When they got to Ten Downing Street, there were photographers and news reporters waiting for them. They didn’t care though. They were excited to enter Ten Downing Street, probably for the first time for all three of them, even the Doctor. Mickey would be mad he was missing this. They entered the building and were escorted through to a room where the rest of the leaders of alien research were gathered. 

A man came into the room, holding an ID badge in his hand. He held it above his head as he spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, can we convene? Quick as we can, please. This way, on the right. And can I remind you, ID cards are to be worn at all times.” He approached the Doctor, handing the ID card to him. “Here’s your ID card. I’m sorry, your companions don’t have clearance.”

“I don’t go anywhere without them,” the Doctor said, putting the ID card on.

“You’re the Code Nine, not them. Now, I’m sorry, er… Doctor… It’s the Doctor, isn’t it?” The Doctor nodded. “They’ll have to stay outside.”

“They’re staying with me,” the Doctor told him.

“Look, even I don’t have enough clearance to go in there. I can’t let them in and that’s a fact.”

“That’s alright. You go,” Rose said.

“We’ll be fine out here,” Cory told him.

“Excuse me, are you the Doctor?” an older woman with brown hair wearing a pink blazer asked.

“You sure?” the Doctor asked them.

“Not now!” the man said. “We’re busy, can’t you go home?”

“We’ll be fine, Doctor, you need to be in there,” Cory said.

“I just need a word in private,” the woman told the man.

“You haven’t got clearance, now leave it!”

The Doctor said a parting word and entered the room.

The man turned back to Rose and Cory. “I’ll have to leave you two with security.”

He started leading them away, but the woman approached. “It’s alright, I’ll look after them. Let me be of some use. Walk with me.”

They flanked her on either side, and Cory could tell her smile was forced and she was faking a calm. Her movements were jagged, like she was stopping herself from running, and there was a terror behind her eyes.

“Just keep walking… That’s right, don’t look round,” she snapped when Rose looked over her shoulder. She pulled a badge out of her purse and showed it to them. “Harrier Jones. MP, Flydale North.”

She led them to an empty stairwell, and turned to them. “This friend of yours, he’s an expert, is that right? He know… He-He knows about aliens?”

“Why d’you wanna know?” Rose asked.

Even Cory could tell Harriet was going to break down seconds before she did, her face welling up and all her emotions pooling over. She started crying, and Rose started comforting her, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“What happened?” Cory asked.

“I-I can’t explain it,” she said, wiping away her tears. “Let me show you. Otherwise you won’t believe me.”

**Author's Note:**

> See you next Friday!


End file.
